Before the Gates of Mordor I stood
by Another Sindar
Summary: "I watched the Black Gate open..." Legolas narrates the Battle of the Black Gate, with a plot twist ending. Battle of the Black Gate with Legolas's POV. Non-Canonical Ending!


**Author's Note: **This work is based on the Lord of the Rings book and the Peter Jackson movies. I own nothing except my words and idea.

I watched the Black Gate open.

Hordes of orcs surged forth, without order, without care, stampeding until the ground shook with their weight. The land before the Gate crowded with those filthy creatures.

A command halted the approach of the army. Orc chieftains bellowed orders as the lesser orcs shuffled to their stations. The formation would break, however, as soon as the order to charge was given.

I knew that.

I've fought battles, tried to drive the dark creatures away from our home.

The orcs, they didn't fight with unity, with order, with discipline. They fought because it delighted them to kill. They fought savagely, with bloodthirsty glee, impossible to stop once the killing started, save for an arrow to the brain or a sword across the neck.

Perhaps their discord could be manipulated to our advantage, their lack of teamwork be used to break through their ranks.

But it might be no use.

As I watched the opposing army arranging itself for charging, my trained eyes estimated their number to be at least ten times of ours. More probably waited behind the Gates. The odd were stacked heavily against us. I knew our only hope laid with the halflings, perhaps they would find a way to get free and destroy the Ring while Sauron was focused on us. Perhaps that's just wishful thinking.

Sauron's army slowly surrounded us, cutting off our retreat. We were to be annihilated.

"Steady."

Aragorn's even-voiced command drew my eyes away from our enemy and to our friends. The Army of the West was growing agitated. The ranks shifting as the men realized, too, that they were unlikely to walk away alive from the battle.

"Steady!"

Aragorn's voice raised slightly, the power behind the command prominent. I had always admired that, his ability to put power into his words and made others listen. Adar had that power as well. That's one of the qualities that made him such a great king.

Thoughts of Adar suddenly made me homesick. When I left Mirkwood, I bereft the kingdom of a warrior, a commander, a prince. In these trying times, how much would my absence affect the kingdom, affect Adar? Would he…

I was interrupted from my musing by a hand that clasped my shoulder. My gaze turned to the owner of the hand. "I'm splitting the army in two," Aragorn murmured. "It would be easier for us to each command a side than to command all sides."

I nodded my assent. The plan was sound. In fact, any idea that would lengthen our survival would be sound.

The Army of the West quietly divided. I stayed with Aragorn, along with the remaining members of the Fellowship on the front line, grim and determined, against our enemy.

High above the opposing armies, Khamûl, astride his flying beast, gave a shrieking cry.

And Sauron's army charged.

A deafening roar proceeded the tens of thousands of booted feet, their bodies weighted down by metal armor and weapons. Dust stirred from the forsaken ground, obscuring view and increasing disorder.

I drew my sword, and waited.

The first wave of enemy was killed, but the second was already there, and then the third, the fourth. The enemies stamping over bodies of orc and men alike. Mindlessly eager in their quest for blood.

I dispatched the orcs and a few Easterlings with the ease of millennia of practice, managing to dodge out of swing blades and stabbing tips. But my companions weren't so lucky.

Already, dead men, men of Gondor, men of Rohan were piling up. Our line was wavering, breaking. Soon the battle would become an all-out melee.

And then the trolls came.

So loud was the battle, that I didn't hear their approach until they were almost upon us. The Olog-hai, stronger, more cunning and agile than their lesser cousins bashed fighters, orcs and men alike, aside with their large spiked clubs as they stomped into the fray. I shouted for our men, to "form a line," to "close ranks." But I was too late.

The trolls didn't break our line. They shattered it. They blew it to smithereens with those frightfully forceful swings of their clubs.

Chaos reigned the field.

Frantically, I began to search for my friends. Gimli, I spotted nearby, hacking the leg off a Olog-hai with his battle axe, seemingly holding his own against his much larger opponent. Gandalf was slightly off to the side, fighting a large orc, his white hair and cloak a beacon in a sea of grey. Aragorn was harder to find. Fighting had separated him from our group, sucking him deeper into the enemies than he, perhaps, had intended. Andúril gleamed as its wielder took on one foe after another. With a swinging stroke, I took the head of an orc who thought to catch me unaware and proceeded to look for Merry and Pippin. They were left behind the front lines despite their protests, for their own safety. But now with the lines broken, they, too, must be plunged into battle.

Before I could search further, a large, well-armored orc had sighted me as his opponent. A leer twisted his ugly features as he raised his blood coated scimitar in a mock salute.

We dueled across the battlefield, his brute strength against my skills. From his extensive armor, I deduced that he was a captain of sorts, a ranking officer in Sauron's army.

He won't be an easy foe.

We were broken up by small skirmishes. New attackers separated us before I was able to finish him.

Hours had passed since the Black Gate opened, I managed to glimpse the hobbits in my fighting, but I had long lost sight of them or others of the Fellowship. My arms were starting to tire, yet, for every orc I killed, two more would take its place.

We were losing.

Suddenly, a cry sounded beside me. I pivoted to see a man, bearing the crest of Gondor, gazing southeast. I looked to see the Nazgûl flying toward Mount Doom.

There was only one thing that would call the Nazgûl away from the battlefield, and toward that direction. Only one, because Sauron's most hated enemies were here, before the Black Gates. The Nazgûl won't leave the field, unless Sauron was alerted to the Fellowship's intentions, unless Sauron had realized his great peril, .

Even as my attention scrambled to turn back to the battlefield, the lapse had cost me. A scimitar split the air too close to my body, and sank into my back in a downward stroke.

I fell to my knees, then my side. My stunned eyes took in the ugly leer on the ugly orc officer's face, before blackness took over…

_To be continued..._

* * *

Olog-hai: An upgraded version trolls, stronger, faster, more cunning, and able to withstand sunlight.

Adar: Sindarian for "father."


End file.
